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[TRENCHES] Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - Vulgarity

It’s a feature! A sexy, sexy feature.

Anonymous

Gauntlets can be thrown in lots of ways, but the intent of insult is always there.

I was testing a part of a game where the user had to interact with a computer terminal to type in various commands. I was told to try variations on known phrases, but alter it slightly for each iteration (capital letters, spaces, etc). “Try everything you can think of.”

After several hours of this and nearing total mental collapse, I started putting in various nonsense phrases for fun (similar to you’d do with old text parser games), just to see if the programmers had planned for that sort of juvenile behavior. Besides, I thought I could always argue that this should have been thought and tested.

I typed in “slut” and suddenly a slideshow appeared with naked women.

After the shock, I noticed it was actually all the same woman, but in the requisite fantasy poses this sort of thing affords. A few seconds into this revelry, my supervisor walked by and asked me just what the world I thought I was doing, son. I explained what happened. He stares for a few seconds and then walks off, telling me to stay there until he returned and Don’t. Touch. Anything.

20 minutes pass, during which I’m equally terrified and embarrassed, as people were walking by my desk and giggling uncontrollably. One guy did offer me a high five. Also the pictures looped, and I lost interest after the first eighteen cycles. Sort of.

Supervisor returns with another guy I’ve never seen before, and tells him to look at my screen. This second guy runs through the full spectrum of emotions - giddy surprise which begets alarmed realization - before his eyes redden in fury and he runs down the hall. Seconds later, he emerges in a fist fight with another man. Turns out a programmer had been having an affair with an artist’s wife, and I’d brought it to the climactic breaking point upon stumbling across this “feature.”

Their struggle ended quickly once security was called in. Both were fired immediately. I was terminated the next day for vague reasons at best.

I did try it once the game released, and (of course) was disappointed.

I'm fairly skeptical as well. There is zero upside for the coder to put that in there unless he WANTED to lose his job. Even if that was an 'M' game, no studio wants a 'hot coffee' scenario on their hands.

I'm fairly skeptical as well. There is zero upside for the coder to put that in there unless he WANTED to lose his job. Even if that was an 'M' game, no studio wants a 'hot coffee' scenario on their hands.

No idea if true or not, but I've seen plenty of people do exceedingly stupid things they should not do, even when they "know" it's stupid, they just can't seem to stop themselves.

So I see no reason why it couldn't be true. I've seen people do much more overtly stupid things than that in places I have worked. He may have thought it was super clever and no one would EVER find it for years. He may have even planned to leak the way to unlock it himself after release.

At Will wouldn't protect him from being fired. But it also wouldn't protect the company from the fucking IMMENSE pile of sexual harassment lawsuits that should've piled out of that event and made the national news, dragging everyone involved under and resulting in a huge payout for the person telling the story.

There seems to be this common misconception about game companies that you can just "sneak" these huge things into games without anyone noticing. And then the QA guy happens to stumble upon the secret.

And gets fired for it (=doing your job)? Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

I'd name the company.
It deserves public defacement for wrongful termination such as this.

It would, except that there is no way this thing happened. This story is a fabrication of amusing fantasy. Any discussion of this story, vis-a-vis the possibility it actually occurred, are misleading. It is a non-story.

Kinda ruins the story section. Earlier things seemed embellished, but this is just silly.

Samuel Clemmons (Mark Twain) once said, "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth is not."
Tom Clancy probably said it a bit more succinctly "The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense."

Also, if the programmer was the one having the affair, why would he be the one getting mad and running down the hall. (there's no way they would bring an artist over a programmer to look at that kind of issue)

Wrongful termination lawsuit anyone? I'm usually the last person to say lawsuit and mean it, but damn. That could almost be a sexual harassment lawsuit as well.

If they're working in an At Will state, they can be fired for any reason. Unless they have specific contracts, the employer can sack them with no justification at all.

I don't think at will negates sexual harassment. I'm by no means knowledgeable, but that seems incorrect. He brought something sexual (that he did not do) to the attention of his superiors and was subsequently fired.

Also, if the programmer was the one having the affair, why would he be the one getting mad and running down the hall. (there's no way they would bring an artist over a programmer to look at that kind of issue)

I assumed that the supervisor did bring over the artist, probably because the supervisor recognized the artist's wife in the pictures.

I don't think the idea of a guy sleeping with a colleague's wife and planting photos of the infidelity inside media where too many people will see it is hard to believe. Add to that the continual talk of lawsuits and workers rights and whatnot, and it's like you guys just live in a nicer world. How can I get in on that?

Samuel Clemmons (Mark Twain) once said, "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth is not."
Tom Clancy probably said it a bit more succinctly "The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense."

This, friend. It matters not if it was real; it was entertaining and FUNNY.

I'm fairly skeptical as well. There is zero upside for the coder to put that in there unless he WANTED to lose his job. Even if that was an 'M' game, no studio wants a 'hot coffee' scenario on their hands.

No idea if true or not, but I've seen plenty of people do exceedingly stupid things they should not do, even when they "know" it's stupid, they just can't seem to stop themselves.

It's not that much stupider than the guy who got caught having an affair because he posted pictures of him with his girlfriend on his facebook, which of course popped up in his wife's facebook feed.

I'm fairly skeptical as well. There is zero upside for the coder to put that in there unless he WANTED to lose his job. Even if that was an 'M' game, no studio wants a 'hot coffee' scenario on their hands.

No idea if true or not, but I've seen plenty of people do exceedingly stupid things they should not do, even when they "know" it's stupid, they just can't seem to stop themselves.

It's not that much stupider than the guy who got caught having an affair because he posted pictures of him with his girlfriend on his facebook, which of course popped up in his wife's facebook feed.

I demand links or google friendly phrases to let me know of this "wank folder" story, I already know about the Congressman twitter (I thought he was awesome before that ), Simcopter, Hotcoffee, and the facebook one.

I demand links or google friendly phrases to let me know of this "wank folder" story, I already know about the Congressman twitter (I thought he was awesome before that ), Simcopter, Hotcoffee, and the facebook one.